The Ghosts of Christmas Past

Me, Christmas 1971

With a chill in the air and Christmas tunes softly playing from my ipod, I lovingly bake sweet treats that will invariably end up on my hips. All the while, ghosts of Christmases past linger in every corner, nook and cranny of my life. When I pass our lit up tree, I recall Aunt Mattie's enduring love of a tree that's more Charlie Brownish than elegant. Her cousin, who lived on a farm nearby, would chop down some hideous evergreen from his land and dump it on our front porch a few days before Christmas. Aunt Mattie's eyes would light up when she saw it, while I held onto her apron, leaned my little head against her leg and held back tears of disappointment. To her credit, she always turned that scraggly bunch of branches into a thing of beauty and if you squinted at it in the dark, nothing but twinkling lights sparkling, it always looked just right.

I wrap gifts, my tape job looking more like a task my two-year-old grandson has taken on and am reminded of the censure of a grandmother who was tyrannical in her wrapping supervision, as she had me wrap all of the presents, instructing me to make precise folds and intricate bows to go atop packages that had meaningless, expensive bobbles inside. Oh, how I loathed that job. More deeply, I loathed the sentiment behind them, gifts for show, given with the intent of making her "look good". In fact, as I put together my own packages, I don't recall even one single gift my grandmother gave me in the spirit of love, at Christmastime or otherwise. I do, however, remember the year my mother implored me not to ask my grandmother for anything, because if I did grandma wouldn't have enough money to buy her own daughter a gift. In truth, I'd happily give up all the presents now and in the future for just one more day with mom. If I am perfectly still, however, shutting away all of the holiday madness and noise, allowing the quiet to settle in, I can almost hear my mother telling me none of that matters now. I can feel her surrounding me, her spirit leaving with me nothing but the love she often didn't know how to show in life. The ghost of her is an ever-present comfort and I often whisper to her in the night the words I didn't say when she was alive, knowing that she "knows", even the things I didn't tell her.

The final ghost is the one that's most raw this season, the pain of it a bone-rattling ache. It frequently catches me off guard, as I go about every facet of my day...shopping here, cooking there, or curled up on the sofa watching sappy Hallmark movies that I tell myself won't make me cry, but always do. I remember this time last year... my father's sullen face, his emaciated cancer-riddled body, and his utter look of defeat, as he told me he was grateful to see another Christmas. Then and now, I cannot recall even one single, happy memory of a Christmas spent with him. Not. One. What I do remember, however, is 20-plus years of watching and making happy memories throughout the years with my own daughters. It is enough to trade the sorrows and regrets from my own childhood for the joys and laughter of theirs. In fact, it was through their beautiful eyes that I first learned about real Christmas magic. Prior to them, that concept was as abstract as those plots from the aforementioned Hallmark movie reels!

As I eat a double-chocolate cookie (that I will certainly pay for later with 15 more minutes of a workout--totally worth it), it occurs to me that ol' George Bailey might actually be one of my soulmates. An angel showed him what life would have been like had he never been born, and he finally realized just how much his own life was worth. He realized how much love and joy he'd brought into the world. While the story, itself, is a mere work of fiction (i.e. It's a Wonderful Life), the message is completely applicable...to all of us. Maybe we get dealt that ugly tree with the ratty branches and a lopsided lilt. It is, in the end, up to us to either despair that it's not perfect, or light it up and decorate it into something extraordinary and beautiful!

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